Windswept
by kate04us
Summary: A little experiment. Andy's thoughts about their life together and where it all started. A little AU. Also, mind the warning.


**Windswept**

by Kate04

" _I closed my eyes and turned my face into the cold wind. When I felt it swept along my skin, there was no past. No future. Just now._ _"_

― _Nina Hrusa_

 **A/N:** This is a bit of an experiment. It does not have much of a plot and I suppose it deserves a warning for major character death. However, I choose to think that true love never dies.

 **Disclaimer:** Not my sandbox, not my toys. Gonna put them back, I promise.

* * *

He did not know when he had first noticed her. Back then, he thought he knew her from somewhere, but was unable to place her. She just sat there, in the sand, a little out of the way of the few people who frequented that small strip of beach off the Pacific Coast Highway. She seemed to especially like the solitude of the colder days of fall and winter, when it was raining or too windy for most people to be outside. That was when he saw her most often.

At first, he had ignored her. She was just another lost soul attempting to find something among the roaring of the waves and the vastness of the sea. Or maybe she wanted to forget, like he did. His spot was a few yards away from hers, just as secluded and with a spectacular view of the Pacific – and her.

She was stunning. That was the first thing he noticed about her. Long, brown hair with golden and red highlight, gently curling all the way down to her waist, maybe a little on the skinny side, but with a nice rack, legs to die for, and a really great ass. The most beautiful part of her was her face, however. It was impossibly expressive, allowing him to read her state of mind even from the distance. Her eyes were the most breathtaking shade of green. He had caught a glimpse of them once when he walked past her and she had looked up at the sky to keep her tears from spilling down her cheeks. He'd had to force himself to keep walking, to not stare into the vast pools of misery he had found.

Sometimes, he wondered why she seemed to be so sad every time he came across her, but mostly he focused on his own problems. His wife was unhappy in their tiny apartment. Then she was pregnant, and then expecting another child. Money was tight, work forced him to be away from his family too much. She nagged him about that. She never wanted him to talk about the darkness he witnessed, and she yelled at him when he tried to leave it at the bar on his way home.

The woman was there when he had fallen off the wagon for the first time. By that time, he knew her name and had a better idea what pulled the corners of her lovely lips down. He knew that her husband drank too much. He often sat close by, cradling his own drink, listening to his jokes, while the man downed one whiskey after another.

Andy saw the subtle changes in the woman when she got pregnant the first time. Her figure filled out a little, and she glowed despite the sadness that always lingered in her faraway look and the way her shoulders were the slightest bit hunched. He witnessed her hands caressing the little being inside her, her gaze directed inward more often than towards the sea. Then she stayed away for a while – to take care of her newborn, he knew. Her husband had celebrated with his bar buddies, only going home to his wife and new baby once he could barely hold on to the bar.

He saw her less frequently after that. Between work and a child at home, he figured that she did not have a lot of time to herself. Jack had finally started working, but money was tight. She was back at work soon after giving birth.

A few years later, she sat in her spot again, her hands once again caressing a rounded belly. Her husband had not been at the bar in months. He was working more and doing well from what Andy heard. She looked more concerned than sad for a while. It was hard to provide for a family in a city like Los Angeles, even with two moderate salaries. He often thought about her when he came to their spot. That was how he had been thinking about it for a long time. He hoped that things were going well for her. They did not meet at work very often back then.

When he fell off the wagon again and his wife kicked him out, she was there, too. Sometimes he wondered if she was as aware of him as he was of her, but she never gave any indication that she even knew he existed. Her mere presence was somehow comforting to him, however.

Except that one time after he had almost lost his job. She had transferred to IA after the second child arrived, and it had been her who had raked his ass over the coals for being drunk on the job. He had shot someone, and while the shooting had been ruled justified in the end, his being under the influence had gotten him into serious trouble. He had wanted to march over to her and yell at her some more, but his head had been pounding, and he had not been too eager to listen to her recite her precious rules once again.

It was only years later that he realized how much he owed her for forcing him to pull his head out of the sand and face his problems. He had gone to rehab, and he had worked for his sobriety ever since.

While he was struggling to pull his life together, he observed her as hers was slowly unraveling. There were rumors. The law enforcement community was like a small town, and news traveled fast. The husband was drinking again. Then he started gambling. Then he was gone, leaving her with two kids and a mountain of debt. That was when she came to their beach more frequently again, when the subtle concern and sadness turned into palpable anguish. It hurt to look at her. She lost weight, and her makeup barely concealed the dark shadows underneath her eyes. Jack had broken her heart.

Jack kept doing that over the years. Sometimes, Andy would hear that he was back in town. Back to stay, if one wanted to believe him. Sharon did. Many, many times. Every time, he found her at the beach again, eyes red and puffy as she gazed into the distance.

The years changed her. She was no longer too skinny, and her hair was shorter, barely falling past her shoulder. She had started dying it at some point if he was not incorrect. Lines had appeared on her face, speaking of a life that, while not always easy, had still been filled with laughter and joy. She still came to their spot every now and then, but she seemed more at peace. There were sad moments, contemplative moments, there was concern and even heartbreak, but for the most part, she appeared to be content.

It was more than two decades after he had first run into her on their beach that he decided to change their unvoiced agreement not ignore one another. They had just locked up one of Sharon's detectives for killing her husband. He knew how much it affected her. When he passed her on the beach that night, he decided to sit down next to her instead of his usual spot a few yards from her. They did not talk. They simply sat in companionable silence, separated by no more than a few inches, staring toward the distant horizon.

A year after that, it was Sharon who joined him. He was having a particularly bad day, the image of a young girl dying in the street still too vivid in his mind. He kept hearing her last words, her concern about making her father angry, and he kept thinking that it could have been him. He had driven while intoxicated more than once, and it was nothing but pure luck that he had never harmed anyone. And yet, he could not remember the last time he had wanted a drink more than he did that night.

His hand was curled around his sobriety ring, his knuckles white. His shoulders were tense, and his neck and head ached with it. He swallowed convulsively, remembering how the bourbon felt as it burned its way down his throat, the way it warmed his stomach and slowly numbed all the pain and worries.

Her hands were warm when they closed around his, cradling it between them until he slowly, gradually relaxed. Her shoulder rubbed against his, and she sat close enough that their hips touched. Her scent surrounded him, an expensive perfume and something heady, something uniquely Sharon. He breathed deeply, letting her presence soothe him.

At work, he would never have allowed her to comfort him, and she would not have offered. Ever since he had learned who she was, she had been Sharon to him during the brief moments they shared on their beach. Of course, she did not know that, but that was how he thought of her in this place. At work, she was Raydor, keeper of the rules, the pain in his backside. They clashed frequently. She annoyed him. He pissed her off. She sent him off to anger management or sensitivity training or whatever else she was able to think up. He yelled at her, and she slapped him down. She always won.

On their beach, in that secret spot away from everything, none of that mattered. There was no fighting, there were no winners or losers. They simply were.

More and more often over the following years, they decided to _be_ together. Her presence blew his tension away, and his company helped wash the sadness off her face. There were few words, saved only for the rare moments when a silent presence or a gentle touch were not enough.

Their relationship at work changed. They were forced to work together more closely. Then she became his boss. Almost thirty years earlier, Andy had discovered some sort of infatuation with a woman he knew nothing about. He had come up with many theories for why she was there, why she was so sad all the time. He had learned a few things from rumors and from listening to her husband, and he had filled in the blanks in his mind. For a long time, she had been this mystical woman who only existed on a quiet stretch of beach miles from where their real lives happened.

The more he learned about who Sharon really was, the more he liked her. He began to understand why rules and regulations meant so much to her, that they gave her something solid to hold onto when her life crumbled around her. He witnessed her as a mother and later as a friend, and his infatuation for his mystery woman turned into love for his best friend.

It was on _their_ beach that they shared their first kiss, on a late, warm summer night after their second date. It was on _their_ beach that he had told her that he loved her for the first time. It was a rainy January evening, only a couple of months after his blood clot issue. They had made out in the rain like teenagers. When he knew that he would propose to her, his first thought had been to do it on _their_ beach, but he had reconsidered, wanting something a little more special.

It was on _their_ beach that they exchanged their vows in front of a priest, surrounded by their friends and family.

It was on _their_ beach that he currently stood, their five children beside him, clasping the heavy mahogany urn. It had been her wish to find her final rest here, in that unremarkable spot where everything had begun. Some day soon, he would join her. A small smile tugged at his lips as he watched the wind pick up her ashes and carry them away towards the waves. He felt her presence as if she was standing right next to him, her small hand on his arm, her body warm beside his. She was still with him. She would be waiting for him.

 _Soon, my love_ , he whispered, listening for her laughter on the wind.

 **~FIN~**


End file.
